


Artistic Timing

by wistfulmemory



Series: NaNoWriMo 2018 [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 20:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16502447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wistfulmemory/pseuds/wistfulmemory
Summary: Follow the rules, and you won't mess up the history of the world.





	Artistic Timing

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the writing prompt: "You’re a time-traveling tour guide. Your job is to safely escort people into the future or past and make sure they don’t mess with the space-time continuum. One day, someone slips through the cracks — and it’s your job to fix it."

I had this job because I had gotten my Masters in Renaissance history, not because I knew anything about the space-time continuum or how it actually works. People enjoyed being able to see the Renaissance artists they had learned about while they were growing up (and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles jokes had gotten old my first day working this job), and the company had found discreet viewing locations for many of the famous artists of the Renaissance.

Most people just wanted to see their favorite artists working and don’t care which specific artwork they see in person, so it was very strange when Lucas Milford has a specific date and location he wanted to visit. Since I only interact with clients once they’d been screened and passed the mandatory two-week historical training all approved clients are required to go through, I didn’t think too much of it at the time.

We traveled to Florence, Italy, in 1506. Lucas refused to stay in the designated safe viewing area, and when I attempted to led him back, he knocked me down and ran down an alley and disappeared before I could get up.

It’s not ideal being an unchaperoned woman during this time period, so I quickly hurried to the safe house before I attempted to make a plan. While basically everything we wear or have with us is 100% historically accurate for the time period (because all of it was actually from the time period), we did require everyone to have one anachronistic item on them. It was always a historically accurate piece of jewelry that could only be removed by a combination of a code, an external key, and biometrics (none of which the clients had access to), and it could only be removed at the company headquarters. Inside the piece of jewelry was a tracking device, which I activated as soon as I was in the house.

Lucas was leaving Leonardo da Vinci’s studio. As I studied the coordinates to figure out the fastest way to get there from the safe house, the beacon disappeared. Lucas had activated the second failsafe tech in his ring (which had been his choice of jewelry) and had jumped back to the time period we had left this morning. I activated my necklace, and when I arrived back in the return chamber, I looked around for Lucas. He was gone, but evidence of him had been left behind in the unconscious bodies of the tech monitors.

Racing out of the room, I was confronted by my supervisor, Laney Haynes, who demanded to know why Lucas had returned by himself and why he had been carrying a large, canvas-wrapped object with him as he raced out the headquarters and into a car that took off as soon as he had slammed the door closed. Seeing my confused expressed, she grabbed my arm, and we ran to the Alternate History Research Center. Any changes that occur because of a visit to the past show up there, and we can use the information to figure out how to make things right. Niki Jarrett yelled out that the _Mona Lisa_ had been taken as soon as we entered the room.

This was not good. The most famous painting in history could not go missing from its own time period. Laney turned to me and gave me the news I had always dreaded hearing as soon as I knew I was hired by VISIT (Venturing Into Situations In Time). Since I had been the one to take Lucas to the time where he messed up history, it was my job to fix the mess he had made. I sighed and started debating plans on how I could find him while I walked over to the fashion section to drop off my Italian Renaissance gown and reclaim my mundane clothes.


End file.
